LETTER: Littering in towns is out of control

Your letters

Published:07:58Sunday 14 February 2016

I read your article on rubbish and vandalism in Clair Park, Haywards Heath (Middy 21.01.16), with interest and it has spurred me on to highlight the enormous problem that we have in Burgess Hill with litter.

It does not seem to matter where you go, rubbish is all around. I am a responsible dog walker, and because of the rainfall over recent weeks causing serious mud, I have started to walk my dog around the housing estates and Burgess Hill Business Park.

Every time I go out, I am flabbergasted about the amount of litter there is.

People lodge it into the top of hedges, under bushes, behind shrubs, along road sides, along streams.

Children’s play areas on the estate where I live are, also, regularly littered with beer cans and broken (on purpose) alcohol bottles.

It is not limited to urban areas only, however. Rural areas around the southern edge of Burgess Hill cannot escape the litter louts.

In fact last summer some youths had clearly had a ‘picnic’ in a field and left crisp packets, empty alcohol bottles, broken bottles hidden in the long grass, beer cans, and carrier bags.

The mess was strewn everywhere and it occurred several times over the summer months.

It was disgusting. I collected up their rubbish.

Littering in Burgess Hill is completely out of control.

I seem to remember that when I was growing up, anti-littering campaigns were broadcast on TV.

I do not think that such campaigns run with the visibility they once used to have.

I feel it is high time that littering, which is a criminal offence, be highlighted as the antisocial problem it is and the next generation be educated, especially in Secondary Schools and Sixth Form Colleges, as a matter of urgency. It cannot go on!

Andrea Arogyaswamy

Elwood Close, Burgess Hill

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